I hate my dog, I want to kill him

[broadway]

Sorry for your loss,

I'd love to keep chickens but as I have a staffy I don't think I could trust her plus I think I'd be winding her up.

[ford1990]

I have a half collie half spaniel and after seeing her rag doll a full grown cat in our back garden i wouldn't let her in with the hens. Although when the chickens see a cat they make a lot of noise but as soon as i let the dog out they all calm down! Sorry you lost a good hen like that though.

[Nicos]

And a cockerel would probably not have made any difference!

When I first had my chooks they happily free ranged until the neighbour's terrier spotted one of them and chased it back to the rest of the flock and then for some reason chased the dominant cockerel instead.
Fortunately it gave me time to block off the gate whilst the cockerel perched just out of reach of the dog ..giving the rest of the chooks a chance to fly back to their coop.
Next day we ordered the electric fencing and used up a couple of rolls of chicken wire to keep the dog out of the garden.
What I'm wondering is ...I wonder if it was purely chance that the dog chased the male instead of the original gal or if he distracted the dog to give the others a chance to get away?
Either way he was one brave cockerel.
I really expected one of them to drop dead from fright ( I nearly did)
A sadder , more stressed hunched up bunch of chooks you never did see- poor little things.

I'm very sorry for your recent losses Mr Darcy- it's even worse when a child grieves isn't it? x

[HayleyB]

Our girls have free range of the yard and the dogs are in the orchard, a couple of girls learned not to escape over the gate the hard way, luckily I was around both times.

[Hilary B]

I heard of someone tying the dead hen to the dog and leaving it for days
I did push his face into the feathers very harshly telling him bad dog, then I ran him under the freezing outdoor tap and made him stay away from us for a couple housr, i know this seems harsh but given that i felt like throttling him he think I was quite restrained

The point to smacking the dog with the dead hen is that it makes him think the hen is attacking him. The game of chasing hens sudenly isn't fun any more!
I cured mine of grabbing pheasants in a similar way (they still tend to deliberately 'flush' pheasants if we come acrss one while walking, but they make no attempt to get close enough to catch it), and Barbara Woodhouse recommended it for persistent chicken killers.
There may be dogs whose response to the treatment is to get aggressive towards hens (most chicken killers aren't actualy feeling aggressive, it is just a game which happens to end up with a dead hen), especially if it isn't really quickly after they have killed one (the dog needs to still be enjoying the game until he gets a nasty shock).
Tying the dead hen to the dog is probably useless, and ANY punishment which is delayed more than a few moments will only confuse the dog. He will associate the unpleasant experience with whatever he was doing just before it happened!

[frias]

I recall someone else on the Vine buying from them too..sorry but can't for the life of me remember who!!!)

I bought from them on your advice Nicos. My neighbour has seen the foxes in her garden and has a problem with them digging up her garden every night at the moment. They obviously know my girls are here, so hopefully the fence is doing it's job and will continue to do so.

[mr darcy]

Thankyou for the link for the fencing!!!

[Eco-Chic]

I'm sorry to hear about Violette and I understand how bad you feel. My 3 dogs killed Clarry Cluck 2 and a half weeks after I brought her home. I hadn't latched the gate properly and the dogs got into the main garden where the chooks were ranging.

As if that wasn't bad enough, I forgot to latch it again a few weeks later and Teddy Jack Russell caught hold of Myrtle, dropped her when I grabbed him, got away from me and caught Myrtle again. I rammed my hand into his mouth so he had to drop her. I was lucky this time, she wasn't hurt.

I had always hoped the dogs would be 'big brothers' to the hens. It was obvious from Day 1 that this was not going to happen

[mr darcy]

Thankyou Eco